I wasn’t sure what to expect going into this show, but as an
old school Shihad fan from the Killjoy album, I was keen to attend and get a
different perspective of Jon and his musical background. My normal gigs I go to have a lot of
distortion, giant drum kits that take up half the stage and almost ear piercing
levels (certainly enough to make your ear’s ring for two days after if you’re
not wearing ear plugs!) so I was expecting a very laid back, relaxed show with
a lot of grey heads (well more than what I’d see at a normal gig I would
attend!)

When Jon started singing his first song, one of the newer
tracks off FVEY, Think You’re So Free, I first thought to myself ‘this is going
to be a long night’ as I found myself consciously missing the bass and drums
and POWER that Shihad is famous for. Looking around the room at this point (it’s 99% seated with only a
handful of people standing) I saw a lot of head banging going on, so decided to
wait and see what happened before I made anymore notes. My frame of mind changed very quickly after
these initial doubts as I became absorbed and entranced by Jon’s voice and
energy. Yes even though he was sitting
on a high stool in front of a mic, playing an acoustic guitar, in the middle of
the stage it seemed that at any moment Jon was going to leap off his stool and
start head banging and screaming. I
quickly realised that I was going to witness something truly magical that I
think many Shihad fans (or ANY music fans for that matter, would love to
witness with one of their idols in this style).

Jon’s set list was the perfect blend of Shihad songs and
covers and I often found myself thinking that I preferred his acoustic version
of the songs than the stadium anthem versions, which some of them had become. Two songs brought me to tears after he had
explained the meanings behind the songs. Both of these two songs had already been favourite Shihad songs to me,
but hearing what inspired them and then listening to the acoustic versions took
me on a journey that only served to amplify my initial feelings I already had
from the songs. Pacifier was written for
a close friend of Jon’s who was suffering from a Mental Illness at the time
and Jon wanted to help him get through it. Pacifier always spoke to me of ‘holding on, it’s going to be ok’ and
hearing this song performed acoustically with only Jon’s powerful voice
accompanied by the guitar was awe inspiring. The same can be said for The Great Divide which Jon revealed he originally
wrote as a 2.5 min lullaby about observing the lines at the Auckland City
Mission, night after night when they had come back to NZ to record FVEY and his
observations of a NZ changed, and not necessarily for the better.

The few covers that Jon did all either inspired his own songwriting processes or were songs he thought fitted well into the current state
of affairs in the world. Aside from the
two covers dedicated to David Bowie and Lemmy (who passed away last year), my
favourite cover was Bob Dylan’s Master of War and I actually preferred Jon’s
version of this great song to the original. I had to laugh at Jon’s explanation of the song To The Bogans "imagine
this is another version of War Pigs then you will be all good", were Jon’s
sentiments.

In between each song Jon linked each song with a short story
or memory of how each Shihad song was inspired or humorous antidotes from on
tour, how nicknames came about and all of his interactions with the crowd were
hilarious– heckling us, calling us out on being bogans, calling us old or
mature bogans, encouraging us to sing "REALLY OBNOCIOUSLY for this song" and
encouraging us saying that was the best drunk singing I’ve heard (Bliss, by Th' Dudes). There was a lot of times during
the night when I had to wipe tears of laughter from my eyes, especially with
Jon’s story on when he had to interview Lemmy for a Children's show when Shihad
supported Motorhead. I don’t remember
the last time I was this entertained by a musician. I stated at the start of my review that the
shows I normally attend are of bands, but reflecting on Jon’s show now, you
never, ever get this intimate a performance with a whole band set up. Jon’s tour is now over, but I highly
recommend you get out to his next one! There has to be more and next time I’m going as a punter. Jon’s acoustic shows are something that any Kiwi bogan has to witness, even to just get more of an appreciation for
Shihad’s music… after all they did influence a whole new generation of Bogans,
and still are!

About Jon Toogood

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